
■ /\ -■» .^% W" ,/\. «■ , .^^'- 







The Family, the State 
and the School 

1 — t J \ < '; 

By REV. PfC; YORKE, D. D. 



A PAPER READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING 
OF THE CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIA- 
TION, AT PITTSBURG, PA., JUNE 24, 1912 



SAN FRANCISCO: 

THE TEXT BOOK PUBLISHING CO. 

1912. 






Imprimatur 

9 P. G. EIOEDAN, D. D. 

Aeps. Sti. Francisci 
In festo Nativ. B. V. M., 1912 



©C1.A38 4 401 



The Family, the State 
and the School 

By REV. P. C. YORKE, D. D. 

A PAPER READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING 
OF THE CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIA- 
TION, AT PITTSBURG, PA., JUNE 24, 1912 

IT is with great reluctance that I ap- 
proach the consideration of this sub- 
ject In the first place, I remember 
the domestic controversy that raged some 
twenty years ago over its theoretical as- 
pect, and I should be very sorry if any 
word of mine might lead to a revival of 
that unhappy dispute. In the second 
place, a consideration of the extrinsic and 
intrinsic principles that must determine 
our practical attitude towards present ten- 
dencies, involves questions that are very 
much in evidence at the moment, and it 
might appear to the captious that our dis- 
cussion of them in this gathering is not 
without ulterior motives. In the third 



Facing Conditions, Not Theories. 

place, I must confess that I am not suffi- 
ciently conversant with the literature of 
the subject to offer you a learned paper, 
nor have I the opportunity now for that 
research which the importance of the mat- 
ter and the dignity of this assembly de- 
mand. At the same time I know your 
kindness will make allowance for my 
shortcomings, because I am writing, as it 
were, under obedience, and because I do 
not intend to enter on the thorny road of 
rights and duties. We are, as Cleveland 
said, facing conditions, not theories, and 
my object is to give you a plain descrip- 
tion of those conditions, to discover the 
causes that produce them, and finally to 
suggest the practical, matter-of-fact atti- 
tude we, as Catholics and Americans, 
should take toward the Family, the State 
and the School. 

I. THE CONDITIONS. 

That our present conditions in the 
United States are very different fron^ 
what they were twenty years ago, is evi- 



The Magnification of the State. 

dent to the most superficial observcn In- 
deed, it would be strange if they were not, 
for human conditions are always chang- 
ing, not in America alone, but the world 
over. The very name we bestow on our 
civil society, the State, is a witness to this 
truth. Its significance therefore lies not 
in the fact of the change, but in the direc- 
tion of the change. Whither are we drift- 
ing? or if we are pursuing a set course, 
by what stars do we sail? 

I think you will all agree with me that 
the general trend of public opinion in 
this country today is towards an exalta- 
tion of the idea of civil society, an enlarge- 
ment of its powers, and a more frequent 
exercise of its activities — a process which, 
for the want of a better word, I will call 
the ^^magnification" of the State. By the 
"magnification" of the State I do not 
mean that natural political growth of the 
central power at the expense of the local 
units which began at the first confedera- 
tion and was made secure by the results 
of the Civil War; that b. I am not 



The Normal Trend in America. 

Speaking of the growth of the National or 
Federal Government as against States' 
Rights. I mean rather a change in the 
idea of the State itself, whether it be rep- 
resented by the President at Washington 
or by the humblest trustee of a village 
school. 

It is especially significant that this 
^^magnification" of the State is looked 
upon, not as something exceptional, but as 
something natural and normal. Just as we 
say, ^^Inter arma silent leges/^ so we 
know that there are abnormal conditions 
in which the State may undertake enter- 
prises that in ordinary circumstances it 
will leave to private initiative. In a 
famine or a flood, in a fire or an earth- 
quake, in a plague or a panic, the State 
has to act, and to act quickly. In such 
cases the individual withers and is lost in 
the general need. Moreover, in States that 
are composed of superior and inferior 
races or are made up of various classes or 
strata of differing degrees of prosperity 
and culture, usually the results of one or 



Among the Freest of Peoples. 

more military conquests, we expect to find 
a modern government in its just desire to 
benefit all classes of its citizens, adopting 
measures that savor of paternalism. But 
here in America we are dealing with a 
homogeneous people that has enjoyed free- 
dom for nearly a century and a half. We 
are dealing with a race which (neglecting 
the colored population) has had during 
that time a government the most demo- 
cratic that has ever existed. We are deal- 
ing with a country where one man is as 
good as another, and where popular edu- 
cation has been worshipped as the palla- 
dium of popular liberty. We are dealing 
with a Constitution in which free thought 
and free speech have been maintained as 
in no other form of civil society. We are 
dealing with citizens whose franchises are 
of the broadest description and who sit in 
their curule chairs, not only as the kings 
the barbarian saw in the Roman Senate, 
but also as philosophers, the decision of 
whose wisdom is the court of last resort. 
Let the people rule, let the people decide, 

5 



Exemplified in Family and School. 

is the slogan under which our hosts are 
marching forth to war, and it is on this 
people, this assembly of rulers and judges, 
in a time of peace and prosperity, that the 
^^magnification" of the State is invoked as 
the only cure for the multitudinous evils 
that afflict us. 

To describe adequately the process 
which I have called the ^^magnification" 
of the State would require a survey of all 
the departments of government and an ex- 
amination of all the lines of national and 
local development. Such a survey would 
exceed the limits of a paper, and is of 
course not to be thought of. I will there- 
fore take one specimen of the process, a 
specimen which I think will be of general 
interest to you as citizens, and of special 
interest to you as members of the teaching 
profession. I mean the ^^magnification" 
of the State in reference to the Family and 
the School. 

There is not one of you, I am sure, 
that has not had forced upon him the 
actual and pressing question of the in- 



High Cost of Living and High Taxes. 

creased cost of living. No words of mine 
could add to the discussions in the public 
press or describe the feelings of those who 
nowadays contemplate their monthly bills. 
So harrowing a subject is best left 
to silence. But we may ask, What is 
the cause of the growing dearness of 
the necessities of life? No doubt, 
there are many causes. Some will fix 
on the Tariff and some on the Trusts. 
I notice very few call attention to an ele- 
ment that is certainly as important as 
Tariff or Trusts, namely, the rising rate 
in the expenditure of the public funds. 

The association of the words ^^publicans 
and sinners," so striking in the Roman 
period of Sacred History, is no longer in 
this country an idea ^^not understanded of 
the people.'^ The taxgatherer is abroad 
in the land with a vengeance. During the 
past ten years, in a district where there 
has been neither boom nor catastrophe, my 
parish taxes have increased a hundred per 
cent. What is the reason? The reason is 
that the city is spending more money. 



The Consumer Pays the Taxes. 

We want a monumental City Hall, and we 
must pay for it. We want modern fire 
houses, and we must pay for them. We 
want palatial public schools, and we must 
pay for them. The old Romans built their 
temples and their palaces and their thea- 
ters from the plunder of the provinces; 
we build them from the plunder of our- 
selves. 

As is known to everybody, this in- 
crease in taxes has to be met ultimately by 
the consumer. When the landlord has to 
pay more on his property, he makes the 
tenant pay more on the rent. When the 
tenant has to pay more on the rent, he 
makes the purchaser pay more on the 
commodities he needs. The baker in- 
creases the cost of the loaf or lessens its 
size. The butcher announces that meat 
has gone up, and in the raise recoups him- 
self for his tribute to the landlord. So, 
while it is not the only factor in the in- 
creased cost of living, still the increase of 
taxation caused by the lavish expenditure 
of public money is one which the student 

8 



High Taxes from High Expenses, 

of economics cannot afford to neglect. 

Now, if the swollen rate of taxation 
were caused only by the installation of 
permanent improvements, there would be 
some hope of abatement as the bonds are 
redeemed. But, unfortunately, the an- 
nual expenses of civic administration are 
also rising. This is especially true in 
Public Education. In California the cost 
of the public schools has climbed from a 
low proportion of the general expenditure 
until now it equals that of all the other 
departments put together. Of every hun- 
dred dollars raised by this State to pay 
its way, the State system of education ab- 
sorbs fifty. And the end is not yet. There 
is now before the people a Free Text Book 
proposition, the adoption of which will 
materially increase our burdens, for adopt- 
ed it will be unless all the signs of the 
times are at fault. 

The steady rise of the school appropria- 
tion in proportion to the appropriation 
required to carry out the other functions 
of the State, is not due to expenditure for 



Caused by New State Activities. 

purely school purposes or for the better- 
ment of teachers' salaries. If such were 
the case, there would not be so much room 
for complaint, because there would be a 
natural limit in view. But the increase is 
caused by the development of new activi- 
ties undertaken in connection with the 
schools proper, and to this development 
there appears to be no horizon. It is a 
form of the ^^magnification" of the State 
which costs money and multiplies with the 
fearsome fecundity of a microbe in a 
favorable culture medium. 

One needs not to be so very old to re- 
member a time when the American com- 
mon school was an agency for the diffusion 
of the elements of education. It taught 
the youth of the land how to read, write 
and figure, and was content if its gradu- 
ates could perform those operations with 
accuracy and facility. The college was 
frankly for such as sought a liberal edu- 
cation in order to pursue what are known 
as the learned professions. Now, how- 
ever, the common schools are so crammed 

10 



The Old School and the New. 

with subjects that the mastery of the ele- 
ments of education is a most uncommon 
achievement among its graduates. Be- 
tween the college and the common school 
the high school has arisen, and at one end 
of its development it proclaims itself the 
University of the People, and at the other 
end it proposes to absorb two grades of 
the elementary course in order to produce 
that scholastic mermaid known as the 
intermediate school. In revenge the com- 
mon school is reaching back to ravage the 
nursery; and the kindergarten dignifies 
with the name of scholastic education the 
processes of infantile alimentation, and the 
sub-conscious suggestion of somnolence 
produced by the oscillatory movement of 
the cradle and the crooning of that pre- 
historic and catastrophical epic, ^^Rock-a- 
Bye, Baby, on the Tree Top." The college 
is submerged in the university, which no 
longer demands of its alumni the disci- 
pline of an organic course of instruction, 
but has become an immense intellectual 
department store offering information on 

II 



Leading Up to State Socialism. 

every subject under the sun; and its cus- 
tomers wander from counter to counter in- 
specting and sampling the wares usually 
at their own sweet will. Moreover, the 
extension of the domain of knowledge or 
the search for new truth tends more and 
more to absorb university energies, so that 
the degree formerly the hall mark of a 
university course satisfactorily absolved 
has now become the sign of matriculation 
into the post-graduate departments, as if 
men were to be always learning and never 
arriving at the knowledge of the truth. 

Years ago, when the advocates of paren- 
tal rights in the matter of education were 
arguing against the incipient encroach- 
ments of the State, they prophesied that the 
processes then begun would infallibly lead 
to Communism or Socialism. They were 
laughed at for their pains. Such conse- 
quences might be feared in the effete 
Latin nations of Europe, but the sturdy 
individualism of America could not be 
corrupted by free public schools. We 
have passed far beyond the forebodings 

12 



School Socialism in Practice. 

of those timid Cassandras. Not only have 
we free schools, but free books, free lunch, 
free clothes and free transportation. Not 
universally as yet, but more and more 
widely adopted every day. In the schools 
the State inoculates the children against 
smallpox, insures them against toothache, 
examines them for eye strain, searches 
their inward parts for adenoids, and if 
their little interiors escape the State sur- 
geon's knife it is because the unfortunate 
infants are void and empty. Then there 
are trained nurses to inspect their food, to 
supervise their digestion, to feel their pulse, 
to test their sputum, to label their bugs. 
Nay, the commonest of domestic opera- 
tions cannot escape the catholic care of the 
School Board, and there is a maid to comb 
the children's hair, to wash their face, to 
clean their teeth, to pare their nails, to 
button their frocks and to tie their shoes. 
Formerly play was considered the very 
antithesis of school. Its natural sponta- 
neity w^as contrasted with the artificial rou- 
tine of the class room. The old saw had 

13 



Not Even Play Hours Exempt. 

it: ^^AU work and no play makes Jack 
a dull boy." But now tKe long hand of 
the all-compelling pedagogue has reached 
out into the playground, not only during 
school time, but in the once inviolable 
hours after school. No longer may the 
youth of the nation gambol on the green, 
or play ball in the vacant lot, or even do 
chores for mother. They are herded into 
so-called playgrounds, tagged, measured, 
weighed and card-catalogued. All the 
natural spontaneity of play has disappear- 
ed. The children are automata, the cor- 
pora vilia for the experiments of scien- 
tists, whose researches have never been 
equalled since Gulliver in his travels hap- 
pened upon the philosophers of Laputa. 
With rings on their fingers and bells on 
their toes, pedometers on their ankles and 
resistance coils on their elbows, they are 
put through the predigested motions that 
make the formal exercises of the gymna- 
sium a torture to every normal and 
healthy child. 

But that is not all. You remember the 



Nor Any Sort or Condition of Men. 

Old Man of the Sea in the veracious 
history of Sinbad the Sailor. The school, 
having once got on the neck of the com- 
munity, bids fair to stay there forever. 
Having completely subdued the children, 
and having taught them that their time 
and their powers no longer belong to 
themselves or their parents, but to the 
State, as represented by the school authori- 
ties, the latest development aims to hold 
them in tutelage all the days of their life. 
Lest you may think I am trying to raise a 
cheap laugh by indulging in burlesque, I 
hasten to quote my authority for what 
follows. In the Saturday Evening Post of 
June I, 191 2, you will find an article en- 
titled, "The Discovery of the School- 
house," by Frederick C. Howe, in which 
is given a sympathetic synopsis of a con- 
ference held at Madison, Wisconsin, on 
the new uses of the public school. That 
conference was no mere convention of 
cranks, but was attended by such men as 
Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jer- 
sey, Governor Stubbs of Kansas, Governor 

15 



/ 



All at the Charge of the People. 

McGovern of Wisconsin, Senators Clapp 
and Pomerene, and university presidents, 
editors, educators, architects, from all 
over the country. The general thesis to 
which all subscribed was that it is a mis- 
take to restrict the use of the school house 
to the seven hours of the school day. It 
belongs to the people and should be at 
the disposal of the people. It is down- 
right waste not to use it after school hours 
for all kinds of social and civic activities. 
The American public school house should 
be the expression of popular fervor, like 
the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, the 
center of popular life, like the Forum of 
ancient Rome. 

The new uses to w^hich the schools are 
to be put are many and various, but they 
all have the common characteristic that 
they call for an immense expenditure of 
public money. In Rochester certain peo- 
ple, in order to avoid the waste of closed 
school houses, induced the Board of Edu- 
cation to appropriate $5,000 to keep them 
open* fourteen hours in the day, instead of 

16 



Ruled by Beneficent Pedagogues. 

seven, as if a man owning a $30 auto- 
mobile duster should invest $3,000 in a 
car lest the $30 be unused. Chicago has 
spent $11,000,000 in the cause, and New 
York distributes annually $228,000 for 
school lectures and neighborhood gather- 
ings alone. 

In future the school house is to harbor 
a town meeting in perpetual session. Thi- 
ther shall come the Mayor, the Council- 
men, and even the majestic Congressmen, 
to give an account of their stewardship. 
The dull scholastic atmosphere shall be 
brightened by discussions on taxes, roads 
and candidates, and the stagnant air of 
authority made to vibrate to miniature 
cyclones of referendums and recalls. 
There, too, under the guidance of the 
beneficent Pedagogue, the citizenry is to 
be organized for the overthrow of the 
wicked boss and the destruction of the 
political machine. One of the most pa- 
thetic sights of the conference was the 
look of pained astonishment that over- 
spread the assembly as the beneficent Peda- 

17 



Forum, Village Green, and Church. 

gogue reported how the wicked boss afore- 
said had smitten him hip and thigh and 
distributed his spoils. 

The school is to be not only an everlast- 
ing town meeting, but it is to be a never- 
fading village green with an eternal May 
pole. **Rings, bars, and tumbling mats'' 
oust the stiff and antiquated desks. ^'Box- 
ing and wrestling matches" replace the 
caligraphic exercises at the blackboard. 
*^Basket ball games" teach an accuracy un- 
known to the multiplication table. In 
part return for its quarter of a million 
expenditure, a school official of New York 
^Visited one of the schools last fall and 
found 300 young people dancing under 
wholesome surroundings.'* 

Moreover, the school-center is to be the 
church of the people — not a futile dog- 
matic church, but a modern church that 
brings results. Libraries, lectures, mov- 
ing pictures, minstrel shows, music, ice 
cream and spelling bees — these arc 
the seven sacraments of the new dis- 
pensation, and they work ex opere oper- 

18 



Social Center and Reformatory, 

ato. ^^Mr. Clarence A. Perry, en- 
gaged by the Russell Sage foundation of 
New York to make a study of school cen- 
ters, says, after an investigation of condi- 
tions in large cities: ^The girl without a 
social center is the mother of the woman 
on the street.' " Nay, more, the social 
center is the ^^one thing necessary" for, he 
continues: ^^If the city has to choose be- 
tween the schools and the play centers, it 
could, I believe, give up the schools more 
safely than it could go without the play 
centers." Before their benign influence 
the ^^gangs of toughs" that infest our cities 
will disappear. Instances are given of 
how they have been metamorphosed into 
^^debating clubs," to the great admiration 
of the merchants of the place. Surely, 
admiration in its original sense is the only 
feeling that could be aroused by the pale- 
livered doctrine that the superabounding 
vitality of red-blooded youth could find 
sufficient outlet for its energies in "speak- 
ing pieces." 

The new school house is to be the seat 

19 



A Life Long Popular University. 

of a popular university. There is to be 
the natural habitat of the Free Lecturer. 
The winter before last 700 of the species 
were turned loose on the inoffensive peo- 
ple of New York City alone. If the lec- 
tures were anything like those evolved in 
this vicinity, I have a deep and abiding 
sympathy for the 5,400 audiences that at- 
tended them. My experience of such lec- 
tures is that, considered as a means of edu- 
cation, their value is nil, and that consid- 
ered as a form of entertainment their cost 
is exorbitant. 

And this university is never to let go its 
grip of the people ^^until death doth them 
part" One of the apostles of the new dis- 
covery spoke of a ^4ife-long university," 
and from the experience of Wisconsin was 
drawn the hope that ^^Some day we shall 
be able to go to college all our lives — and 
without leaving our own ward or county." 
Only a sublimated university professor 
could conceive the summum bonum of 
human existence as going to school for- 
ever. 

20 



The School House of the Future. 

It would tire your patience if I were to 
describe in detail all the proposals for us- 
ing the school house. It is to be an Agri- 
cultural Experiment Station, a Co-opera- 
tive Store, a Town Hall, a People's Club, 
a Theater, a Branch Library, a Public 
Employment Bureau, a Health Office, a 
Dental Dispensary, a Headquarters for 
School Nurses, a Pure Milk Depot, an 
Art Gallery, a Voting Booth, a Concert 
Hall, a Billiard Room and a Restaurant. 
I will sum up this description of our pres- 
ent conditions by quoting the closing para- 
graphs of the article referred to above. It 
is true that the whole program has no- 
where been realized, but a real program 
it is, and if enthusiasm and sincerity can 
bring it into effect, its promoters are rich 
in both qualities. Here is Mr. Howe's 
conclusion: ^The school house is waiting 
for democracy — for the democracy that 
is fast finding its voice all over America. 
It will be the new town hall — the town 
hall that bred the spirit of the Revolu- 
tion prior to the Battle of Lexin8;ton. In 

21 



How the Conditions Are Produced. 

the school house we shall breed the orators, 
statesmen and politicians of the future. 
From them will issue the musician and 
the artist. Out of it a new drama will 
spring. 

^^The school house will make culture, 
education and companionship life-long 
things. In the revivified old red school 
house democracy has possibilities that no 
one has fully dreamed of. It will be 
democracy's- Acropolis! About it the life 
of the community will center as it cen- 
tered about the Forum in ancient Rome." 

II. THE CAUSES. 

The foregoing rapid survey of actual 
conditions in American school life shows 
how great a hold the civic authority has 
obtained on the processes of education — 
how far the ^^magnification" of the State 
has advanced in this direction alone. The 
description of the proposed uses of the 
school house measures the extent to which 
the new thought hopes to go. In this 
latter department there is much said about 

22 



They Call for a New Bureaucracy. 

the people using the school house for this, 
that and the other purpose; there is noth- 
ing said about the manner in which they 
are to use it. After all, no matter how 
democratic the organization of a com- 
munity may be, the people must act 
through officials. At the Madison confer- 
ence no one seems to have thought of the 
number of hands necessary to do the many- 
sided work centered in the new school 
house. The janitor would be compelled to 
abdicate his ^'ancient solitary reign," and 
every school center would be a miniature 
State capitol and Washington combined. 
A horde of officials as industrious as the 
aphides on a rose bush would draw susten- 
ance from the treasury of every school dis- 
trict. A band of experts would dominate 
the daily life of the people down to its 
minutest details. It would be a standing 
army before which the battalions of Ger- 
many would fade into insignificance; it 
would be a bureaucracy before which the 
multitudinous officials of France would 
hide their diminished heads. 

23 



Difficulty of Finding Causes. 

Naturally the question arises at this 
point, How does it come to pass that peo- 
ple so individualistic as the Americans and 
so attached to personal liberty, permit such 
interference with their elementary rights, 
and what is it that moves men of educa- 
tion, and experience in public business, to 
desire to push to such extremes the ^^mag- 
nification" of the State? 

As in every other great movement affect- 
ing the national life, it is impossible to fix 
on one cause as an adequate explanation 
of all the phenomena. The forces behind the 
tendencies are for the most part obscure, 
or rather, we are too close to them to ap- 
preciate their nature. There are, how- 
ever, certain facts, some of universal oc- 
currence, and some peculiar to American 
conditions, which may throw light on the 
receptivity of the public to the new aposto- 
late; while I am inclined to believe that 
the apostolate itself is motived by a false 
philosophy concerning the nature of the 
State and a false theory concerning the de- 
velopment of the human race. 

24 



Getting Something for Nothing. 

The first fact to which I would call 
your attention as explanatory of the readi- 
ness of the people to barter their rights 
and liberties, is the desire to get something 
for nothing. This appetite is universal, 
and manifests itself in such familiar forms 
as the bargain sale, the trading stamp, the 
coupon and the premium. Now, you will 
find that it is practically impossible to 
convince the ordinary citizen, who is taxed 
only indirectly, that he pays, and pays 
dearly, for the education his children re- 
ceive in the public schools. He is firmly 
convinced that he is getting something for 
nothing — that the State is giving his little 
ones a gratuitous gift out of its own re- 
sources. Hence, when it is proposed to 
extend the scope of the State's generosity 
and to present the pupils with free text 
books, he grows enthusiastic over the pros- 
pect of sharing more largely in the public 
beneficence, never thinking that the State 
has nothing except w^hat it gets from the 
people, and that he is ^^paying the piper" 



25 



Getting a Return for Taxes. 



without having the privilege of ^^calling 
the tune.'' 

When the ordinary citizen is a property 
owner and a direct taxpayer, he argues in 
some such fashion as this: I am paying 
taxes for the support of the public schools ; 
therefore it is economy for me to use them. 
The more use I make of them, the larger 
return I receive from my contribution to 
the State. In fact, I get back more than I 
pay, especially if I can avail myself of 
free text books, free lunch and free trans- 
portation. So far I am getting something 
for nothing. But he does not realize the 
^^wear and tear" on his taxes caused by the 
numerous middlemen who handle them 
from the time they leave his hands until 
they are brought back by his children, and 
particularly he does not realize that the 
time of his children's schooling is only a 
short period of his taxpaying existence — 
children come and children go, but taxes 
go on forever. 

Another fact of universal experience is 
human selfishness. It is not a pleasant 

26 



Fact of Human Selfishness. 



trait to consider, but we must acknowledge 
the existence among men of the tendency 
to shift their burdens to other people's 
shoulders. Those who have to do with in- 
stitutions for the care of dependent chil- 
dren, the sick or the aged, know how ready 
certain persons are to turn their charges 
over to charity, public or private. A 
man, for instance, is left a widower 
with a number of children. He is in good 
health, is earning good wages, and prom- 
ises the institution to pay for the rearing 
of his offspring. For a while he keeps his 
promise, but how often it happens that the 
payments become irregular and finally 
cease. He has married again, and moved 
away, and left his children to be cared 
for by the Church or State. Those of you 
who have had experience in orphan asy- 
lums know what measures you are com- 
pelled to adopt in order to protect the 
rights of children whose parents abandon 
them to the institution in their helpless in- 
fancy, but who wish to reclaim them the 
minute they are able to earn a dollar. 

27 



Our Special Predisposition. 



These, it is true, are extreme cases, but 
they bear witness to a widespread tendency 
to shift burdens to other shoulders. All I 
have seen of settlement work leads me to 
believe that, while beneficial in many re- 
spects, its great drawback lies in develop- 
ing in the children the belief that they are 
entitled to something for nothing, and in 
emphasizing in the parents the tendency 
to allow other people do for their young 
what they themselves are bound to do. 
Hence, if the public school undertakes the 
ordinary domestic operations I have de- 
scribed above — operations which naturally 
belong to the home and the parent — espe- 
cially if it offers free nursing and free 
medical attendance, things which cost 
money, we will find people ready enough 
to acquiesce, though deep down in their 
hearts they know they are sacrificing their 
self-respect and are pauperizing them- 
selves and their children. 

There is in America a special cause pre- 
disposing us to State interference. It is the 
correlative of the Puritan passion for med- 

28 



Heirs of the Meddlesome Puritans. 

dling in other peoples' business. When 
the revolt of the sixteenth century sepa- 
rated the northern nations from the Church 
the organization of the new religions took 
two different paths. Protestantism is in 
its essence a protest against the separate 
natures of Church and State. It denies the 
existence of two distinct societies, each in- 
dependent and supreme in its own sphere, 
and having between them charge of the 
destinies of mankind. In England and 
Germany the State absorbed the Church: 
in Geneva and Scotland the Church ab- 
sorbed the State. New England was peo- 
pled by the spiritual children of Geneva 
and Scotland. The Puritans believed that 
the State was merely a department of the 
Church and slfould be ruled despotically 
in the interests of the Church. Hence 
came, in the halcyon days of Massachu- 
setts, the banishment of heretics, the clip- 
ping of Quakers' ears, the persecution of 
witches and the minute and vexatious regu- 
lations known as the Blue Laws. Hence 
come, even in our own time, though the 

29 



Patrons of Patent Medicines. 

State has long since emancipated itself, the 
continuous ingerence of the preachers in 
civic affairs, the steady pressure of the 
churches on the public schools, and espe- 
cially the numerous political movements 
for regulating, antagonizing, suppressing 
every thing in the heavens above and the 
earth beneath and the v^aters under the 
earth. Never was a nation so afflicted as 
this with crusades, armies, phalanxes, 
leagues, bands, movements, ribbons white, 
blue and red, pledges total, partial, and 
for a while, reforms, abolitions, insurgen- 
cies, uplifts, fads, fancies and fanaticisms — 
all the spawn of the Puritan policy — 

*^To compound for sins that they're in- 
clined to 
By damning those they have no mind to.'' 

America is the native home of the 
patent medicine, and our patent medicine 
is designed, not only for the body, but also 
for the mind. Just as we believe in a 
cure-all for the ills of the flesh, so we be- 
lieve in a cure-all for the ills of the soul. 

30 



Education the Great Cure-All. 

When anything goes wrong with the body 
politic, our first thought is: Let us make 
a law; and we have enough of fool pro- 
visions on our statute books for legislating 
people into morality to furnish material for 
the collective hallucinations of a dozen in- 
sane asylums. 

During the nineteenth century the great 
sovereign, universal and efficacious Amer- 
ican patent medicine was education. Edu- 
cation would not only deliver us from 
Popery, brass money and wooden shoes, 
but the three R's were proclaimed as an 
infallible specific for the elimination of 
crime and the production of good citizen- 
ship. Indeed, if we have the courage to 
sample the arguments for our public 
school system published sixty years ago, 
wc shall find that they all taste of the 
soothing syrups whose alluring advertise- 
ments delighted our grandmothers. 

Moreover, as, when one bottle of the 
patent medicine does not cure, you are 
strongly recommended to try a second, and 
it is impressed upon you that to obtain re- 

31 



Motive Power of Petty Graft. 

suits the treatment must be kept up, so, 
when the splendid results that were to 
come from the public schools did not ma- 
terialize, the cry went forth for more pub- 
lic schools. Hence it has come to pass 
that in the welter of public opinion on 
matters scholastic there are only two things 
on which all agree, namely, that the schools 
have not produced the results predicted, 
and therefore it is necessary to spend more 
money upon them, to enlarge their scope, 
to multiply their activities, for this kind 
of a kingdom of heaven also sufifereth vio- 
lence, and we must bankrupt ourselves, if 
necessary, in order to bear it away. 

Such are a few of what I may call the 
passive causes that favor the ^^magnifica- 
tion" of the State in education. Let us now 
consider some of the active causes — the 
motives that impel men to become apostles 
of the new movement. Here I will briefly 
allude to what may be called the motive 
power of graft. For instance, a church or 
a sectarian society establishes a kindergar- 
ten, a wood yard or a social settlement. 

32 



The Two Great Impelling Causes. 

Everything goes on swimmingly until the 
novelty wears ofif and the subscriptions be- 
gin to fail. The next step is to proclaim 
the work non-sectarian and to appeal to a 
larger circle of subscribers. For a while 
this measure brings some relief, but again 
the difficulty of making ends meet raises 
its ugly head. Then — nobody can tell how 
it is done — but the first thing you know is 
that the kindergarten has been incorporated 
into the public school sj^stem, the wood 
yard has become a municipal enterprise, 
and the social settlement is subsidized by 
the city department of charities, and, most 
beautiful arrangement of all! the original 
staff remain to carry on the work, now, of 
course at the expense of the public funds. 
Proceedings such as this, however, are 
overshadowed by the two great impelling 
causes of the ^^magnification" of the State, 
which appeal not only to the practical poli- 
tician, but to the educated man, the enthu- 
siast, the humanitarian, for it is from the 
ranks of such as these are drawn its most 
effective protagonists. 

33 



Protestantism Intellectually Dead. 

Here it may be well to clear the ground 
by calling to your mind the complete dis- 
appearance of Protestantism in America 
as an intellectual or moral motive power. 
The organizations, indeed, exist, but the 
soul is dead within them. The antagonism 
to the Mother Church is still there, but 
it energizes only in silly paroxysms of 
bigotry — beating its head against a stone 
wall. The old dogmas, false as they 
were, or rather half truths as they were, 
had a certain force, but you might search 
Protestantism with lamps and find no 
trace of those old dogmas now. Modern- 
ism has eaten out the marrow of the min- 
istry, agnosticism is the very breath on 
which the laity lives. Hence the Protest- 
ant churches are seeking on every side for 
some living thing on which they may 
fasten themselves, and the pulpits are 
busy proclaiming the beauties of social 
service and civic worth, the value of 
the institutional church and the necessity 
of business methods in religion, and such 
like patent substitutes for the one thing 

34 



Theory of the Social Contract. 

the Apostle chose to know — Jesus Christ 
and Him Crucified. 

Hence it is that when public men face 
the problems of the day they have no in- 
spiration in the religion of their fathers, 
and it is an article of faith with them 
that the Catholic Church has nothing, at 
least in the province of intellect, that an 
enlightened man need consider. Conse- 
quently, they are thrown back on the 
premises of mere materialism, and their 
philosophy deals with a humanity whose 
destinies are bounded by the cradle and 
the grave. 

Among the tenets of modern philosophy 
perhaps the most universal is that concern- 
ing the nature of the State. Nothing is 
more common nowadays than to hear that 
the people are the State, and that the 
people must rule. No doubt, there is a 
sense in which these statements are true, 
but there is a sense also in which they are 
false, and unfortunately it is in the false 
sense they obtain currency amongst us. 
The theory of the social contract is the 

35 



Consequent Omnipotence of State. 

theory on which all our modern Ameri- 
can policies are founded. The individuals 
of a country create the State by agreeing 
to give certain powers to the government. 
The only limit to the power of the State 
is the w411 of the people. No matter what 
the voters authorize the State to do, that 
the State has a right to do. 

Hence it follows that there is nothing 
in human life, nothing in human society, 
that is not within the jurisdiction of the 
State. Therefore every human organiza- 
tion derives not only its powers, but its 
very existence from the State. Therefore 
every individual is completely at the mercy 
of the State. If the family exists, it is 
because the State has made it and en- 
dowed it with certain rights and privi- 
leges, which rights and privileges the 
State can alter or take away. If the 
Church exists, it is because the State in- 
corporates or tolerates it. It has no powers 
of its own, it can enjoy only those granted 
by law, assumed by custom, and allowed 
by indifference. If the individual has any 

36 



The Superstition of Evolution. 

rights, it is because the omnipotent State, 
that is to say, the will of the people, has 
not taken them from him; if he has any 
privileges, it is because the State, that is 
to «ay, the majority, has in its beneficence 
enfranchised him. 

This is the first principle of modern 
philosophy, and the second is the popular 
conception of the theory of evolution. In 
these two tenets we have sufficient explana- 
tion of the new apostolate of the ^^magnifi- 
cation" of the State, for on them hangeth 
the Law and the Prophets. I do not 
intend here to enter on a scientific exami- 
nation of the doctrines of evolution or 
of the various schools into which its sup- 
porters are divided. It is sufficient to 
know^ evolution as the masses understand 
it, and this sort of evolution is in reality a 
religion, or rather a superstition. Of the 
millions of men who give their adhesion 
to the tenets of evolution there are very 
few who are competent to render a reason 
for the faith that is in them, and these 
few usually adopt an attitude of philo- 

37 



The Two Dogmas of Darwinism. 

sophic doubt. But this does not prevent 
the so-called popular philosophers from 
presenting evolution, not as a working 
hypothesis in the study of nature, but as 
a demonstrated scientific fact — the great 
achievement of modern research. So from 
newspaper and magazine, from text book 
and platform, goes up the cry with more 
than Mahometan insistency, "Great is evo- 
lution, and Darwin is its prophet'' 

The popular religion of evolution may 
be summed up in two dogmas: First, we 
are in a condition of constant develop- 
ment, and, secondl)^, development is caused 
and directed by external agencies, that 
is to say, by the environment or the condi- 
tions in which we live, and move, and 
have our being. Hence it follows that 
if we are to develop along favorable lines, 
we must exist in a favorable environment. 
But as we are now intelligent beings we 
must no longer leave our environment to 
the haphazard methods of nature; we 
must, on the contrary, bend our intelli- 
gence to the task of so regulating the con- 

38 



Well Suited for the Puritan Temper. 

ditions surrounding the race that human- 
ity will be raised to higher and higher 
planes. 

You see at once how this theory of the 
molding power of external circumstances 
dovetails into the Puritan system of Blue 
Laws and inquisitorial regulations, and 
you can understand why the religion of 
evolution has made so complete a con- 
quest of the non-Catholic American mind. 
The Christian teaching that the king- 
dom of heaven is within us is utterly re- 
jected. With the calm pity of superior 
culture they correct the Christ who bids us 
to seek first the kingdom of heaven and 
its justice, and all material needs shall be 
satisfied, and they proclaim that we must 
first be anxious as to what we shall eat, 
and what we shall drink, and wherewithal 
we shall be clothed, and then they say 
the kingdom of heaven shall be added 
to us. 

Hence in the domain of education the 
philosophy of evolution rejects the idea 
that teaching is the awakening and guid- 

39 



Education an External Element. 

ing of a vital process in the mind of the 
pupil by which his internal and native en- 
ergies are exercised and developed until 
he is able to employ them as a free agent 
on a universe over which he has been 
given dominion. Rather the mind of 
child is a plastic mass, to be molded 
by the forces that surround it, and 
to take on the image and likeness of its 
environment. Wherefore the necessity of 
one great supervising intelligence to deal 
with the circumstances in which the na- 
tion's youth is spent. No longer must 
their shaping be left to accident, to nature 
or to the family, but the authority of the 
State must be exercised and the finances 
of the State must be spent, that the child 
of the State shall be fashioned as the 
highest intelligence of the State directs. 

Surely it is a magnificent vision that 
has dawned on the proud eyes of the phil- 
osophers of our day, as magnificent as the 
vision that shone before the Son of the 
Morning what time his ambitious feet 
ascended the sides of the North and 

40 



Dream and Fact, Titanic and Wright. 

aspired to the throne of the Most High. 
They sit in serene majesty in their seais 
of learning, and on their knees lie the for- 
tunes of men as on the knees of the gods. 
On their shoulders is the key of knowledge, 
in their hands the rod of power, on their 
lips the creative word. Before the bright- 
ness of their rising the other-world picture 
of the pale and thorn-crowned Galilean 
fades away and Man has come into his 
own at last. No longer shall he lift lame 
hands to a heaven that hears not and to a 
God that answers not. Heaven is here 
upon earth and humanity is god — a god 
not only conscious of his own needs, but 
omnipotent in supplying them. No more 
is he to be named less than the angels — he 
is the Demiurge who lords it over the 
powers of nature and bends them to his 
will. And lo! as a butterfly on a sum- 
mer's day brushes against the cheek of a 
child, the frozen mass glides by the steel 
sides of man's mightiest achievement, and 
in a moment the gorgeous palace with its 
human freight is 

41 



What the Future May Contain. 

^^Shot, precipitated 
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears." 

A microscopic germ begotten in the cor- 
ruption of earth drags through the un- 
timely gates of death him who taught 
men to spurn the earth, to walk on the 
wings of the wind and to sail with the 
eagle's steadfast eye into the splendors of 
the sun. Vanitas vanitaium et omnia vani- 
tas. 

III. THE OUTLOOK. 

Having considered American condi- 
tions in as far as they refer to the School, 
the Family and the State, and having tried 
to find out what are the causes that have 
produced those conditions, it is now in 
order to ask ourselves what should be our 
practical attitude as Catholics and Ameri- 
cans towards this state of things. 

While I do not wish to pose as a pessi- 
mist or to minimize in any way our rights 
and our duties as citizens or to disparage 
the talent for public affairs and the devo- 

42 



Our Ruling Thought Secularist. 

tion to principle that undoubtedly exist 
amongst us, still I am convinced that we 
can do nothing by direct action to arrest 
the ^^magnification" of the State, the abase- 
ment of the family and the elimination 
of the individual in the province of edu- 
cation. My reasons for this belief I will 
give briefly. In the first place, the ruling 
thought of this country is now secularist. 
The public schools have done their work 
well. They have atrophied the religious 
sense in the vast majority of their gradu- 
ates. The universities are substituting the 
superstition of evolution for the cast-ofif 
clouts of Christianity. Thus all over the 
country today we have in full blast innu- 
merable factories, not indeed for the mak- 
ing of infidels, but for the production of 
devotees to the cult of humanity. In their 
opinion, revealed religion is a delusion 
and a snare, and, having acuteness enough 
to recognize that Catholicism is the only 
logical form of revealed religion extant, 
they look upon it as the most indefensible. 
Therefore, any direct proposal coming 

43 



Deep-Seated Suspicion of Catholics. 

from us would not even be examined. 
The mere fact that it emanates from Cath- 
olics ensures its immediate and unanimous 
rejection. 

In the second place, the great body of 
American non-Catholics have it in their 
bones that we want to destroy the public 
schools. As long as we pay our taxes 
and say nothing, the feeling is quiescent, 
but let us make the most innocent pro- 
posal about the schools, which, after all, 
are our schools as much as theirs, and 
immediately the red flag is thrown to the 
wind, the big drum is beaten, and the 
country is stirred to guard its liberties 
against the Pope. There is absolutely 
nothing we can do to remove this preju- 
dice. We may admit the practical neces- 
sity of public schools such as we have in 
the States, we may pay for their upkeep, 
we may serve on School Boards, we may 
teach in their halls, we may send our 
children to their classes, but there is one 
thing we cannot do, and that is give our 
approval to the theory that mere secular 

44 



Because We Stand for Jesus Christ, 

education can take the place of the grace 
of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
That flag we nail to the mast. As long 
as we keep it flying we must be objects 
of suspicion to those who make secularism 
their idol. They have lifted up their im- 
age of silver and gold, and they com- 
mand all, under pain of high treason, to 
fall down and adore it. But we — much 
as we dislike to stand apart from our 
fellow citizens — we must worship toward 
Jerusalem. We know there is but one 
way for man to be born again, and that 
is of water and the Holy Ghost. We 
know there is but one way for man to 
attain the full possibilities of human life, 
and that is by denying himself and taking 
up his cross, and following in the narrow 
way that is marked by tears and blood. 
We know there is but one way for man to 
reach the destiny for which he was cre- 
ated, and that is by persevering to the 
end in faith and hope and charity. In 
the face of this knowledge and of these 
tremendous mysteries, how punv are the 

45 



False Principles Working Out. 

devices of human wisdom, how contempt- 
ible the threat of human anger, how high 
the commission laid upon every one of 
us, ^'We must obey God rather than man." 
In the third place, even in the rare 
cases when our arguments are considered 
and their force is felt, the result is not 
to draw the upholders of secular educa- 
tion to our position, but to force them 
further along their own lines. For in- 
stance, one permanent result of nearly a 
century's argumentation on the part of 
Catholics is the establishment of the truth 
that the training of the intellect does not 
involve the training of the will. Mere 
knowledge does not make character. The 
most ardent supporters of secular educa- 
tion now admit this as a first principle; 
but it does not bring them a whit nearer 
to the Catholic contention that the only 
sure and efficacious way for training the 
will is through religion. On the contrary, 
their dislike for religion is only inten- 
sified, and they would banish it from 
home life and from public life as they 

46 



Antichrist the Ape of Christ. 

have banished it from school life. The 
original position of the secularists in 
America, as elsewhere, was that religion 
is a detriment in education. In the early 
days they carefully masked that position, 
because religion was in possession. They 
gracefully set religion in a niche apart, 
and insinuated that knowledge was not 
only power, but morality. Now that logic 
and experience have shown the folly of 
their principle, their remedy is not to 
bring back religion, but to expel it from 
the balance of the citizen's life and sub- 
stitute therefor external influences under 
State control. In fact, as Anti-Christ is 
the ape of Christ, they parallel the Chris- 
tian teaching that an unlettered man of 
good morals is a better citizen than a 
learned man of bad morals, as we have 
seen in the report of the investigator of 
the Sage Foundation, who said that the 
city could better afford to give up the 
schools than the social centers. 

At this point, in order to guard against 
misunderstanding, let me say a word about 

47 



Catholics and Social Action. 



our attitude toward free schools, free text 
books, free lunches, playgrounds, social 
centers and the like. As far as I know, 
there is nothing in Catholic teaching or in 
Catholic practice antagonistic to those 
devices considered in themselves. In- 
deed, I do not think I am wrong in 
saying that the ideal Catholic school is 
a free school. Such, at least, is my read- 
ing of Church legislation, not only in 
modern times, but in the dim ages when 
Christian schools were first organized. It 
is true that in many places it is undesir- 
able to realize that ideal under our cir- 
cumstances, and that in other places it is 
impossible — nevertheless, the ideal is 
there. I know of many schools — in Ire- 
land, for instance — where the Brothers 
and Sisters not only gave their pupils a 
free breakfast, but also free clothes. As 
to playgrounds, gymnasiums, social cen- 
ters and the like, I don't suppose there is 
any priest who at some time in his career 
has not tried to help and interest the young 
people in his charge by some such attrac- 

48 



Real Remedies, Not Makeshifts* 

tions, and often with considerable success. 
Far be it from us to object to any meas- 
ure that would alleviate the burden of the 
poor and brighten their lives. We recog- 
nize that if in a great city the vacant lot 
has disappeared, we must institute the 
municipal playground to keep the chil- 
dren ofl the streets. We know too well 
the manifold temptations that encompass 
the young not to be glad to see centers 
multiplied where they may find decent 
amusement in honest surroundings. What 
we object to is, in the first place, the 
attempt to make the conditions of a con- 
gested city the rule and law for the 
whole nation and the exaltation of the 
means to meet the consequences of con- 
gestion as an end in itself to be sought 
for, regardless of consequences. In the 
second place, we object to the adoption of 
palliatives when the source of the evil 
continues active. What is the use of a 
porous plaster on a broken leg? How 
can a playground abate the tenement nui- 
sance? The real remedy is to regulate 

49 



Property Has Duties as Well as Rights. 

or, if necessary, destroy the greedy land- 
lordism that houses human beings in rab- 
bit hutches. It often comes to me when 
I hear our distinguished Catholic pub- 
licists thundering against Socialism that 
they would be doing far better work for 
our Church and our people if they thun- 
dered against the evils that have produced 
Socialism. After all, the people in our 
care are they who have most to gain 
spiritually and materially from a better- 
ment of economic conditions. 1 will con- 
fess it gets on my nerves as I see Cath- 
olics swell up with complacency when 
they are patronizingly told that the 
Church is the great bulwark of property 
by some millionaire against whom the de- 
frauded wages of his workmen are crying 
to heaven for vengeance. It is true we 
defend the right of private property; but 
we also proclaim the duties of private 
property, and I say with a full sense of 
responsibility and a knowledge of what 
the people are thinking that the times de- 
mand that we put the emphasis of our 

50 



The Undermining of the Family. 

teaching not so much on the absolute 
rights of property as on its fiduciary char- 
acter, a character that entails duties to- 
wards the community not the less obliga- 
tory because they are rooted in the virtue 
of charity instead of in the virtue of jus- 
tice. 

In the third place, our objection to 
those devices is founded in the use made 
of them to destroy the independence of 
the individual and the authority of the 
family and to exalt unduly the powers of 
the State. In the course of this paper I 
have given sufficient examples of this ten- 
dency to absolve me from the obligation 
of enlarging on the subject now. I will 
therefore hasten to the conclusion by ex- 
plaining what I mean by indirect action 
in meeting the ^^magnification" of the 
State, especially in the province of educa- 
tion. 

Inasmuch as we cannot expect to influ- 
ence those who are without, we must en- 
deavor to confirm those who are within. 
Our mission now does not lead us into 

51 



Let Us Hearten Our Own People, 

the way of the Gentiles or the cities of the 
Samaritans, but to the sheep that perish of 
the House of Israel. If the Catholic com- 
munity is the salt of the earth, what will 
happen if the salt lose its savor? While 
the Church as Church is indefectible, any 
local church may fade and die. Is the 
spirit of the American Church such that 
we need have no fear? How stands it 
with the laity who have to bear the 
brunt of the battle? Are they* clad in the 
whole armor of God? Are they girt with 
truth and shod with the Gospel, and 
shielded with faith, and helmeted with sal- 
vation, and armed with the sword of the 
Spirit which is the word of God? 

That is the question we must put to our- 
selves, and if there be the slightest hesi- 
tation in the reply there is the weak spot 
we must at once repair. It is not enough 
in these days that Catholics — especially 
Catholics who are in public life — should 
know only the truths necessary to their 
personal salvation. On them is the solici- 
tude of Church and State, and if they 

52 



Let Us Have Men of Light and Leading. 

would do their duty they must know the 
Catholic attitude toward the great funda- 
mental problems of society that are now 
occupying the popular mind. We have 
a philosophy which is the outcome of the 
noblest efforts of human reason, enlight- 
ened by divine revelation and controlled 
by the experience of all the ages. To 
know that philosophy and to apply its 
principles to the questions of the day is 
the by no means easy task for which our 
educated Catholics should be fitted. Then, 
indeed, will they be men of light and 
leading. Then, indeed, will their conclu- 
sions stand the test of time, of facts and 
of argument. Then, indeed, will they be 
not only the champions of the Church, 
but also the benefactors of the State, for 
righteousness, and righteousness alone, ex- 
alteth a nation. 

And as the main movement we have to 
meet is the undue extension of the powers 
of the State, so it is necessary for us to 
have exact and clear-cut ideas of the na- 
ture of the State. This is a wide subject 

53 



Correct Teaching About the State. 

■ i! 

which I cannot touch now; but it is fully 
elaborated in the immortal encyclicals of 
Leo XIII and in the numerous text books 
of Catholic philosophy. In view, how- 
ever, of our special circumstances, there 
is one point we cannot emphasize too 
strongly or too often, and that is that the 
State is not an artificial creation of man's 
good pleasure. The State exists indepen- 
dently of the will of man, and its essence 
and its properties are determined by na- 
ture. It is therefore a natural entity, and 
though, like most natural entities, it is im- 
proved by art, there is a limit to the appli- 
cation of art beyond which there is decay 
and death. The State, too, is not omnip- 
otent; its powers are restricted, and no 
amount of legislation, direct or indirect, 
can give the State authority beyond its 
sphere. 

Then the family is not a product of 
man's devising. It also is a natural society 
and derives its rights, not from the State, 
but from nature. It is true it is subordi- 
nate to the State, but, as the State did not 

54 



A True Idea of the Nature of the Church. 

make it, the State cannot destroy it. It is 
the Ark of the Covenant, and if any man 
lay profane hands upon it his generation 
is cut ofif from the face of the earth. 

Neither is God's Church an artificial 
creation of human wisdom, nor yet is it a 
natural society. It is a supernatural or- 
ganization founded by Christ and set in 
this world, not as subordinate to the State 
or drawing its power from the State, but 
as supreme and independent in its own 
sphere. It is indeed ready to co-operate 
with the State in all that pertains to 
human welfare. It is most scrupulous of 
the rights of the State and most generous 
in its concessions in mixed matters as long 
as principle is not touched. But when it 
comes to its divine authority and its es- 
sential attributes, then it is ready to sufifer 
all things, even to the effusion of blood, 
rather than betray the trust committed to 
it by Christ. 

Here it seems to me that it is absolutely 
necessary for us to indoctrinate the minds 
of the rising generation with the history 

55 



A Remembrance of What We Suffered. 

of the Church's long struggle for liberty, 
the achievements of the confessors and 
the glorious testimony of the martyrs. 
Americans have grown so used to free- 
dom that they have ceased to appreciate it. 
The generation that came to this country 
from over seas knew what persecution 
meant. Few of their children that have 
been born here know what it is to suffer 
for the faith. 

Hence it is necessary for us to implant 
deep in their minds the truth that Christ 
is a sign to be spoken against and that His 
Church is a walled city beleaguered by 
the Gates of Hell. In every age the State 
has striven to bring her into bondage and 
to do violence to the conscience of her 
children. We hope and pray that our 
times may be peaceful and that we may 
not see the destruction of that toleration 
that has been our country's noblest boast. 
But we know not the day or the hour. 
We must be always ready, for the trial 
may come sooner than we imagine. It is 
impossible for the pagan State not to per- 

56 



Emphasized by Daily Practice. 

secute, and for many a long day all our 
national forces have been making the State 
pagan. 

To impress those ideas upon our people 
so that they may become, as it were, a 
second nature to them, we must have re- 
course to the ancient practice of the 
Church. When heresies arise, as they must 
arise, the ecclesiastical authority examines 
them, discusses them, states their tenets 
in precise language, condemns them, and 
publishes the form of sound words that 
enshrines the true teaching. In this pro- 
cess her most learned men are engaged, 
and every resource of sacred and even 
profane science is invoked. But the 
Church is not content with this purely in- 
tellectual procedure. She casts about for 
some pious practice, some sacramental, 
some popular devotion, and she makes it, 
as it were, the symbol of the dogma she 
has defined. For instance, the doctrine of 
our redemption by the death of Christ 
was a stumbling block to the Jews and a 
folly to the Gentiles. To emphasize her 

57 



And by Concrete Examples in Life. 

teaching the Church adopted the Cross as 
the exponent of that mystery. The Chris- 
tians signed it on their bodies, wore it on 
their clothes, impressed it on their domes- 
tic utensils, placed it on their churches, 
imposed it on the very crown of empire, 
and after two thousand years we still 
proudly call it the sign of salvation. In 
the same way, when the single personality 
of Christ was denied by the Nestorians, 
the Church was not satisfied with learned 
definitions of the dogma in council, but, 
commanding the people to invoke the 
Blessed Virgin as the Mother of God, she 
brought home to the rudest the truth that 
the same Person who is the Son of God 
is also Son of the Virgin Mary. 

Now, while it is necessary for educated 
Catholics to know the great principles 
and conclusions of Catholic philosophy, 
it is also necessary to put those princi- 
ples and conclusions into some concrete 
form that will impress upon every mind 
the rights of the family, of the individ- 
ual and of the Church against the unregu- 

S8 



The Symbol Being the Parochial School. 

lated ambition of the State. For such a 
purpose I know of nothing more fitting, 
nothing more available, nothing more effi- 
cacious, than the Parochial School. 

The Parochial School stands as a monu- 
ment to the conviction of Catholic parents 
that on them God has laid the primary 
obligation of educating their children. It 
stands as the fortress of the family — a 
testimony to the fact that nature has in- 
stituted the domestic society as the proper 
means for raising citizens, not only for the 
commonwealths of earth, but also for the 
Kingdom of Heaven. It stands as the bul- 
wark of individual rights and individual 
dignity, teaching its pupils that they are 
not mere cogs in the wheels of State, but 
that they are free and responsible beings 
placed on this earth to work out their sal- 
vation and that in the tremendous day 
when the Lord of the living and the dead 
shall enter into judgment with His ser- 
vants, it will profit little if they have 
gained the whole world and lost their own 
soul. 

59 



Even in an Unpretentious Form. 

The Parochial School! Humble and 
unpretentious though it may be, how many 
sacrifices does it not represent — sacrifices 
of priest and people and the daily sacrifice 
of the noble men and women who, under 
the vows of religion, spend themselves and 
are spent that Holy Mother Church may 
have a cavern in the rock and a cleft in 
the wall to raise her little children un- 
spotted from the world. It is worthy of 
our admiration and of our support, not 
only for the work it does, but for the prin- 
ciples it stands for. To these principles 
let us bind ourselves with links of steel. 
Let us not be dazzled by the pomp and 
circumstance of secular schools that lay 
tribute on public funds and private gener- 
osity — the figure of this world passeth 
away. How gloriously the house of Ti- 
berius shone from the Palatine, how 
shameful the cross on which slaves were 
hanged! The palace of Tiberius has long 
been a shapeless mound — a quarry for the 
marbles that decorate the cross-crowned 



60 



Secularism Is the Chief Enemy. 

tomb of the Fisherman. Stat crux dum 
volvitur orb is. 

In season and out of season let us 
hearten ourselves to self-confidence and 
loyalty to our own traditions. I know the 
temptation is almost irresistible to follow 
in the line of what is called modern im- 
provements. Let us remember that it is 
a temptation, and our greatest danger is 
from the seepage of secularism. Far be it 
from me to advocate obscurantism or to 
turn away from the light, but let us be 
sure that it is the light, and not the decep- 
tive glimmer of the false dawn. Our 
children have a right to the best, but 
what is newest is seldom best. Our schools 
should be open to every inspiration of 
the free spirit, but then they must be as 
rock-built towers secure on adamantine 
foundations, standing four square to every 
breeze that blows, and not slight and rud- 
derless skiffs that every wind of doctrine 
tosses to and fro. 

iThis, then, in conclusion, I conceive to 
be the practical attitude demanded from 

6i 



Let Us Stand by Our Own Traditions. 

American Catholics to resist the unlawful 
encroachments of the State, namely, to con- 
tinue as we have begun in the strengthen- 
ing and extending of our own system of 
education in accordance with our own prin- 
ciples and ideals. Parish School and Col- 
lege and University — let them be our con- 
crete protest against secularism and State 
omnipotence. Those who are outside may 
choose to feast of the flesh pots in the 
land of bondage, but, as for us and our 
house, we will serve the Lord through 
whom kings reign and princes decree jus- 
tice. Neither let us lose heart, though the 
task is hard and the outlook dark. What 
if the Gentiles rage and the people medi- 
tate vain things? After all, we are not of 
ignoble blood; we are the children of the 
martyrs, and the God of our fathers, who 
led them with a mighty hand and an out- 
stretched arm, w^ill not deny us the shadow 
of His wings. The sky may lower and the 
tempest break and the ocean chafe against 
its accustomed bounds, but God shall fold 
the clouds as sheep and rebuke the winds, 

62 



And Trust to God for the Result. 

and they shall be still and the sea shall 
abate its swelling waves. Then from the 
midst of our tribulation we shall lift up 
our eyes and behold the cross still shining 
on the eternal hills, and the world shall 
know that the Lord Omnipotent reigneth. 



63 



57 



/ 



f 



D 



A<=U 



^Ov-^^ 















DOBBS BROS. 

LIBRARY BINDING 



A<^ Sr AUGUSTINE -^'^ A^^ \. '" ' ' ^ ^<\ <:> *^^ 



